Sweet Computer Relief

Stupid Computer, Stupid Me

(WARNING: EXTREMELY GEEKY!)

Not sure if people have noticed but I've been really stressed out for a couple of weeks. And sort of in a bad mood. I've been stressed because my computer has been having a super annoying problem and acting flakey-- (which means that I have a super annoying problem and act flakey... ummm flakey-er).

Here's what would happen:

Basically I'd be on my computer doing stuff minding my own business or whatever and I'll use my mouse to click on something-- and my computer will totally lock up. I won't be able to click anything. Even the Start button will be totally frozen out. Every tab in the bottom bar. Frozen. The whole screen locked. To get out of the frozenland I'd have to hit ctrl-alt-delete to free everything up. Then things would go back to normal. But I've been hitting ctrl-alt-delete seriously like every minute or two. It was all super randomly sportatical. There was no logic as to what might be causing this problem. All of a sudden everything would just be locked out frozed. This has been going on for like two freaking weeks. Plus I couldn't drag and drop stuff sometimes! Something was kooky.

At first, I assumed that I must have picked up a virus or spyware somewhere so I ran full system scans with Norton, Ad-Aware, Hi-Jack This, and Spybot Search and Destroy, and random registry utilities and other scanny stuff. Nothing weird was being found. Nothing was fixing the problem. I'd click click click on a frozen computer every two minutes. It seriously was making me mental. Occasionally I'd be teased with a ten minute stretch of no freezing and feel like the problem was gone-- but then it would come back with a vengeance and I'd want to cry.

So I went and did a full system restore to like two weeks ago. Nothing. I uninstalled Norton and my firewall (Outpost) Nothing. It wasn't getting fixed. I spent way too much time on Dells site (which is a disgrace). They bury their customer service phone number, their live chat is all cut and paste responses from the other side of the world, and the site doesn't seem to be able to identify my machine specifically and suggest downloads. You know what video card I have! Why are there 10 downloads choices to update the driver! Give me one! And tell me what it does! Terrible! Dell fix your site! I know stuff about computers and was totally confused!

Anyway I kept researching and I assumed some program in my startup was messing things up. So I made sure only the essentials were running and actually totally uninstalled programs that were somewhat mysterious like Limewire, Kazaa, and ABC Torrent. Which I use regularly. I analyzed everything in my processes by googling them one by one. Nothing too weird in there. I cleared out the startup crap in my registry. Nothing!!! CTRL-ALT-DEL!!!! OVER AND OVER!

I got mad at Microsoft and Dell. I cursed them and their weirdo problems. I vowed to switch to Mac! I feared this problem was actually going to have to make me totally reinstall XP! Which would mean I'd have to buy a new hard drive and hook up my current hard drive as a slave- then reinstall all my programs and set everything up the way I like which realistically is a week long process at best! Major surgery! I planned to do this over the weekend... and didn't.

Anyway, today I was on the phone with a friend of mine and told him how I'd click on stuff and everything kept freezing up. And he said straight out, "Maybe your mouse is f**ked..."

It echoed.

Maybe your mouse is f**ked....

And after ten days of mentalness with the scanning and researching and installing and uninstalling... it was like the heavens parted. I stared at my mouse. He said I should just maybe reinstall the mouse software (which I hadn't done) or just get a new mouse. I reinstalled the software and restarted. And that was that. Totally fixed! No more freezy freaky! After days and days of ctrl-alt-del-ing all day everyday. It's gone. Really gone!! It was the mouse!

The thing that made me extra mental is the mouse was the last thing I'd think of! I assumed the whole computer was screwed. I was ready to put a new friggin hard drive in there before thinking maybe the clickyclick freeze was attributed to the thing doing the actual clicking. That's like me getting a flat tire in a car and popping the hood and banging it with a hammer for a half-hour, then getting back in and driving ten feet and doing it over and over again. DUH! Clicky click seem brokey broke? Look to the mouse!!! Duh!

Computers are making us (at least me) more stupider! Be warned!

ok bye!

tOdd